


Warm

by Tulikettu



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Camping, Coming Out, M/M, Pre-Relationship, not beta read I live with my mistakes, stuff about firbolgs i might be winging, veth lets the team down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26750254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tulikettu/pseuds/Tulikettu
Summary: Beau has a lot of questions.Caduceus has a lot of tea.Fjord also has some things to say.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57
Collections: Pride Month 2020





	Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Pride Month Prompt #1 - Coming Out.
> 
> I don't like this fic that much, but I figured I'd post it to get it off of my to-do list. Eh.

Fjord is staring into the fire, watching the flames form shapes and the logs glow with heat. The rest of his party are dotted around him, doing their own things and relaxing. He can see them all at the peripheries of his vision, no one out of sight. Caduceus is to his right and in the process of sorting through all of his tiny bags of tea, lining them up on the ground in front of him and making a mental inventory of who - what - he has remaining. Opposite him and on Fjord’s left sit Beau and Jester, playing some kind of game in Beau’s notebook. Slightly back from the circle, but still in the light of the fire, Caleb is copying down some spells into his book with Veth near his side, reading. Yasha is just behind Jester, cleaning her weapons. 

It’s peaceful. It’s a nice way to spend the evening. They don’t camp out a lot anymore, since they have enough magic between them to not have to worry about slumming it these days. Sometimes it’s necessary if Caleb is exhausted, but sometimes it’s just nice to do so when they’re somewhere safe. To remember what it used to be like and to appreciate how far they’ve come. That’s what tonight is. 

“Hey, Caduceus,” Beau starts after a while, looking up from her notebook. “Do firbolgs ever hook up with non-firbolgs?”

Caduceus lifts his head and looks at her. “I’m sorry?”

“Do firbolgs, y’know, can you marry and have kids with non-firbolgs?” Beau reiterates. “Cos we’ve only ever met your parents, who are like, married to firbolgs, and Neela, who’s married to a firbolg. And we’ve never met any half-firbolgs.”

“Oh. Yes,” Caduceus smiles gently. “Not frequently, but that’s mostly because we live in quite small groups.”

“Huh,” Beau nods. Then “Are there gay firbolgs? Is that cool?”

Caduceus cocks his head to the side slightly, his expression almost bemused as he considers Beau across the fire. “Of course,” he replies. “Love is love.”

“But then how do you make baby firbolgs? There don’t seem to be a lot of you.”

This time Caduceus chuckles. “There are many ways to become parents, Beau. It isn’t a big problem.”

“Uh-huh,” Beau nods again, clearly full of questions and now on a roll with them. “Do you have arranged marriages?”

“No. We choose our mates ourselves,” Caduceus replies with his infinite patience, though his hands are no longer on his pouches of tea, instead folded in his lap as he gives her his full attention. 

“Did you have one?” The past tense of the question hangs heavily for a second, because Caduceus is out here alone, has never mentioned a partner, was a solitary hermit when the group found him.

“No,” he says gently, the weight of the question lifting slightly. “I wouldn’t have so willingly left my home if I had. Nor would I have stayed away for so long. I’ve not met many people outside of my family until I met you, there’s never been much of an opportunity.”

Beau is quiet for a few more seconds. “Are you a virgin?”

“Beau!” Fjord protests on Caduceus’ behalf, betraying the fact that he was listening in, though it’s pretty obvious that she also has Jester and Yasha’s attention

“What?” Beau asks, as though she doesn’t know, and her attempt at feigned innocence leaves a lot to be desired.

“It isn’t really a big deal,” Caduceus replies with a gentle shrug, unphased. “And it isn’t as if I can meet someone and bring them home. No one would want to live in a graveyard.” As though it’s that simple. As though it’s that black and white. As though his parents didn’t make it work and have a bunch of children whilst living in a graveyard-cum-shrine.

“I dunno, you could make some lady real h-” Beau stops, seeing something in Caduceus’ face that Fjord can’t gauge from his angle. “Oh. You could make some dude really happy.”

“I don’t think that’s my destiny-” Caduceus shrugs it off again.

“Fuck destiny,” Beau replies, actually slamming the floor with her fist. 

Everyone looks at her. Even Caleb looks up from his work to frown in her direction. 

“What?” Beau asks, glancing around the party. “You’re all telling me you don’t think Deuces is a great catch?”

“I think you’re a great catch, Caduceus,” Jester assures him softly, nodding her head. 

“Thank you,” Caduceus smiles at her, then looks back to Beau. “Is there anything else?”

Beau looks like she’s about to bounce into a whole lecture about how destiny is bullshit, but she seems to think the better of it and shrugs. “Nah, I’m just glad we know a bit more stuff about you now. I feel like we’ve learnt a lot since we met you, like you give us all these great pep talks and you heal us and save our lives, and you’re proud of us. Like, no one has been proud of me for like a decade. And you know everything, you got all this perception and you keep it to yourself but you still steer us where we need to go, right? It’s like you’re stealth teaching us all this tact and diplomacy and self care, but we didn’t know a whole lot about you, you know? I mean, still not a lot, but some.”

“I’m sure you’ll meet someone,” Jester adds, the romantic in her unable to resist adding that compliment on top of the pile Beau has just presented. 

“Great. Cool,” Beau nods, apparently pleased with herself. Her eyes land on Fjord. “Hey, Fjord, you’ve learnt a lot of stuff since we met Deuces, haven’t you?”

Fjord looks up again, glancing between Beau and Caduceus, who has once more gone back to his organising, head bowed, long fingers touching the little bags and pouches before him. Fjord’s heart is hammering in his chest. “Huh? Oh. Yeah, yeah, loads,” he nods, his eyes darting around for a moment before he starts to anxiously digs a hole in the dirt beside him with his nails.

“I mean shit, it’s not that deep, man,” Beau replies, watching him fidget. “I just mean you two have your thing...and you’ve learnt...stuff- like...religious stuff. Not that Uk’otoa bullshit-”

“Yeah,” Fjord nods, swallowing hard. It doesn’t matter that the flush in his cheeks isn’t visible in the low light, he can feel the heat in them. “And I, uh- I learnt that I like guys. Since we met Deuces,” he mumbles, but since the attention of the group is on him there’s no way they’re going to miss those words. Everyone’s eyes are on him, but he can only bear to look at one person, his gaze lifting to fix solidly on Caduceus. 

Caduceus’ eyes are so gentle and kind, and how can anyone blame Fjord, really? Caduceus smiles softly, and Fjord can’t help but smile back..

“Cool,” Beau cuts through the moment, apparently excited by this news if her own fidgeting is anything to go by. “Hey, Caleb!” she yells over her shoulder. “Yo, you like dudes too, right?”

Caleb is still writing steadily, and lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Sure. Nice arms. I like muscles.” Simple as that.

“Veth?” Beau turns to her, practically bouncing on the spot now her eyes full of hope. 

“What?” Veth snaps, looking up from her book. 

“Your eyes ever stray to the ladies?” Beau winks. 

“Argh, no. No. Urgh, no, women are awful. And weird. And too squishy-”

Fjord doesn’t know if Beau is more offended by the implication that any part of her is squishy, or that Veth has the audacity to now be the only straight person in the group. 

“You’ve let us down! God!” Beau throws up her hands and that was- easy. Fjord doesn’t really know why he was worried about saying anything, to be honest. Just the thought of bringing it up with the inspiration behind his sexual awakening was rather unnerving, but again, what did he expect? Their newer cleric saved all of his disgust and disappointment for people who actually deserved it, and even that was few and far between.

Caduceus is carefully repacking his tea, and Fjord gives himself a few moments to admire him. Clearly Caduceus is very new to all of this, to attraction or being attractive to someone, it doesn’t take a lot to read that from his few stories of his past pre-Nein. And it’ll be slow, sure, but maybe Fjord can teach him a few things in return-

**Author's Note:**

> I decided this year I'm going to write a big Fjorclay fic for NaNoWriMo, rather than coming up with something original, so if any of you have any prompts or wishes or anything, drop them in the comments and I'll use a few. 
> 
> I'm posting four fics today, sorry for the spam.
> 
> Take care of yourselves, and be kind to each other.


End file.
